Lindsey Graham: "As a party, we got to do some soul-searching." http://t.co/1EkTwG2S9B He's right: It would be nice if GOP could find a soul
— billmon (@billmon1) October 21, 2013
"The greatest trick the GOP ever played was convincing the devil they had a soul to sell." RT @WIIIAI: I'm sure Satan still has the receipt.
— billmon (@billmon1) October 21, 2013
.
So y’all can bitch about my using Billmon as my Twitter RSS, and otherwise talk about stuff less depressing than kids dead of criminal negligence.
Higgs Boson's Mate (Crystal Set)
eemom incoming in three, two…
Yatsuno
@Higgs Boson’s Mate (Crystal Set): I would think she should be long asleep by now.
RobertDSC-Power Mac G5 Dual
I have a couple of questions.
1)If the Dems sweep out the GOP terrorists and control Congress for the next session, could they just repeal the entirety of the Budget Control Act and just do away with the sequester completely?
2)A GOP terrorist friend is complaining about people he knows getting better deals through the California exchange for their healthcare. Could he drop his employer-provided coverage and get something on the exchange?
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Yatsuno: She led a valiant charge last night to defend me against the fascist AL’s jihad against my silly joke. She may be tired.
KG
@RobertDSC-Power Mac G5 Dual: to answer your questions:
1. Yes, budget laws are the easiest to change and if a bill gets through both houses and the president signs off, it’s good
2. He might. You could always do that before, but I’m not sure if the exchanges require that you not have employer sponsored insurance
piratedan
@RobertDSC-Power Mac G5 Dual: new fiscal year, new budgets, that’s why they do one every year.
TheMightyTrowel
OT watching The Eagle while writing a lecture. why does this film exist if it doesn’t involve dude on dude snogging?
Chris
Here’s some Obamacare related news:
A relative of mine is apparently thrilled to be joining some Christian charity organization that’s going to pay for his health insurance so he doesn’t have to get Obamacare. What service does this charity provide, you ask? Excellent question; I wondered myself. And I found a guy on Yahoo Answers asking whether it was a scam, because he was considering signing up and apparently, here’s what they ask of you;
Yep. $285 a year. And all it gets you is a chance to cross your fingers and pray real hard that your fellow Teabangelicals think your condition’s newsworthy enough to pay for. If you get shafted, you have no legal recourse. At all. And all they ask in exchange is that you conform to their lifestyle in all particulars. Oh, and those $285 every year.
This is what they want all of us to be herded back into.
I have never been more grateful that the ACA is just around the corner.
Anne Laurie
@The prophet Nostradumbass: Incidentally, didn’t want to interfere last night, but I hope you know my reply was in the same spirit as your comment…
The prophet Nostradumbass
Today my mom asked me to go to the gas station with her. I said okay, and off we went. when we got there, she handed me her debit card, and I got out of the car to work the machine and stick the nozzle into the car.
After doing the debit card thing, and picking up the nozzle, I turn around, and she’s driving away. I try to get her attention, but no, she drives away and disappears. Guy at the next pump is laughing at me, SWELL.
After almost 15 minutes of trying to call, I finally get a hold of her; she went home. When I ask “Why did you leave me at the gas station”, she says, “Well, where did you go? you left”. I was never more than two feet away from the goddamn car.
My blood pressure was awful the rest of the afternoon.
superfly
Billmon was a master of long form blogging, and is now a master of Twitter as well, such a talented writer, why would anyone bitch about you posting it?
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Anne Laurie: I figured that.
Ash Can
One commenter does not equal “y’all,” at least it shouldn’t north of the Mason-Dixon Line. I think your highlighting of Billmon’s tweets is delightful.
Mark S.
Looked up the thread from last night, dear lord eemom has some fucking anger issues.
KG
@The prophet Nostradumbass: oh, wow… I hope you weren’t too far away
Redshift
@KG: From what I’ve heard, if you have employer-provided health insurance, you’re not allowed to drop it and go on the exchanges instead. On the other hand, employers generally let you decline their insurance (for example, if your spouse has better insurance), so that makes me wonder. I think it may be the case that you’re not eligible for government subsidies if you decline employer coverage, so unless your employer coverage is really crappy, it’s almost certainly not worth it to go to the individual market.
Anne Laurie
@Chris: I seem to recall a news (60 Minutes?) investigation of one of the larger nationwide version of this “Christian insurance alternative”. The conclusion, IIRC, was that it’s a life-threatening scam (people put off treatment while ‘praying’ that their fellow ‘club members’ will find their cancer / heart disease / diabetes ‘worthy’ of their donations — and of course, the organization takes a vast sum of all money collected for overhead). But legal, because First Amendment!
As a person of faith myself, I sometimes wonder how the Good Christians are going to explain taking million-dollar salaries to not provide their fellow christians with the health care they paid for, to Mr. Least-Among-Us Saviour. Except I already know the answer — the ones who aren’t hypocrites are con artists, and most of them are both.
Redshift
@The prophet Nostradumbass: Geez. Sounds like there may be a problem that needs to be looked into.
Alison
@The prophet Nostradumbass: I say this with no snark or meanness intended – is your mom…well? I mean, that does not sound like a totally together person’s behavior…
Shalimar
@Chris: $285, plus you can chip in on everyone else’s worthwhile conditions if you don’t even have one yourself. They also get a crowd that is already shown to be susceptible to grift. Nothing could possibly go wrong.
jenn
@Redshift: huh, I thought the opposite. Maybe a call to the O’care hotline is in order!
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Alison: I already know that she has short-term memory problems, which have developed over the last maybe two years or so.
Shalimar
@The prophet Nostradumbass: Sounds a lot like alzheimers. My grandmother drove off to see her boyfriend years ago and ended up 40 miles in the opposite direction. She forgot how to get to his house, but never admitted there was any problem at all. She insisted that she meant to go the wrong way and need help getting home. Most people are embarrassed that their memories are starting to go, and won’t acknowledge it, maybe not even to themselves. It’s scary.
Steeplejack
@The prophet Nostradumbass:
How old is your mother? That sounds Alzheimer-y.
Alison
@The prophet Nostradumbass: That’s difficult to deal with, and sadly it only gets worse. I’m starting to see small signs of it in my dad, not that he’ll ever admit it…
Fair Economist
@Chris: Besides the scam issues already brought up, this “insurance” lacks *the* most important part of medical insurance – protection from medical extortion. Providers will, as a rule, charge you 2 to 3 times a fair price for services. If you have insurance, the insurer will have negotiated the payment back to a fair level. I am 100% sure their “service” does none of this so if your friend takes it they’ll be paying 3 times a fair price for all their medical care.
Oh, and they’ll probably be inundated with letters from others in the “service” begging for help paying *their* extortionately priced medical bills too. Assuming this thing isn’t 100% pure scam and at least forwards the letters of those facing medical bankruptcy.
The Dangerman
@jenn:
I wonder if 4 hour erections are considered a worthwhile condition?
ETA: …or, for that matter, prescriptions for that little blue pill?
Yatsuno
@Chris: I hope he enjoys his fine too, because that does NOT count as being insured. He’s welcome to call me when it’s shaved off his refund (only recourse the IRS has to enforce the fine) and I can laugh at him.
Chris
@Anne Laurie:
Well yeah, it is legal. That’s the beauty of it – it really isn’t a scam. At least this group isn’t. They’re being scrupulously honest and up-front about telling you that the deal is “you pay us, we guarantee nothing, and if it’s not what you need, there’s nothing you can do about it.” It’s no more illegal than a casino in Las Vegas. You’re the one who has to be terminally brain-dead enough to actually walk through the door and put the coin in the slot.
And I, too, used to be Christian (heck, it still comes and goes), but man, I’ve never understood the people who feel the need to immediately stop all brain activity the minute the car salesman says “because Jesus.” The devil can quote scripture for his own purpose too, numb-nuts.
Mnemosyne (iPhone)
If Linnaeus is around, I responded to his/her question in the previous open thread since I have some experience with the situation.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Steeplejack: She is 77, and her doctor has already told me that it is not Alzheimer’s-like, based on her symptoms.
@Alison: My mom knows it’s happening, which is actually apparently a sign that it’s not Alzheimer’s. The hardest thing, for me, is I remember what she was like before this started happening.
Chris
@Fair Economist:
FYWP just ate my reply to AL, but the crux of what I said – it really isn’t a scam. They’re telling you up front that you’re paying money for no guarantee of return and that you have no recourse against them. It’s a Las Vegas casino, depending entirely on you being dumb enough to play even though you’re in possession of all the facts.
Suzanne
I like the billmon tweets.
Shit, the football and baseball threads are what I can pass on, so I, uh, pass on them. Not hard.
Chris
OH FUCK YOU, WORD PRESS (2 replies moderated). I’m done here :D
Ash Can
@The prophet Nostradumbass: I second the others. Are you sure your mom should be driving?
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Ash Can: that is something I have been wondering about today. This evening, she drove to a friend’s house for dinner, and home, on her own, so she’s not completely incompetent at it.
Spaghetti Lee
@Chris:
I guess bureaucrats poring through your personal life and deciding what you deserve for health care is OK as long as they’re church bureaucrats and not government bureaucrats.
Whenever I hear teabaggers and libertarians talk about how giant gaping shortfalls in health insurance can be papered over with “charity” it always feels like a rhetorical human shield. The smug undertone is always “What’s the matter? Don’t you have as much faith in your fellow man’s empathy as I do? I guess that liberal talk about society and interdependency is just talk.” It’s hard to call them out without ceding the moral high ground. People who want to donate to charities tend to just fucking do it. People who talk endlessly about the importance of charity in this context tend to keep their wallets shut.
Anne Laurie
@Shalimar:
Used to be, everyone lived in the same community their whole lives… everybody knew everybody’s business, had an opinion about each other’s lifestyle choices, ‘took an interest’ in enforcing the local social codes. These days, what with globalization and technology and stuff, we have to create our own pixilated Invisible Villages to get our minimum daily primate requirement of gossip, infotainment, and (hopefully) communal assistance…
piratedan
@The prophet Nostradumbass: could be Parkinsons (or one of its variations), there are strains that have a huge impact on short term memory i.e. they can’t remember something from 10 minutes ago but something that got etched into memory six months ago is still around.
Alison
@The prophet Nostradumbass: IANAD of course, and if they say it’s not Alzheimer’s I guess they know, although I’d always heard that in the early stages people *are* generally aware that something is wrong, but maybe not. But it could just be some other form of dementia/memory lapses. But whatever name they give it, it’s tough to confront, both for the patient and the family/caregivers. I feel for you.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Alison: from what I’ve seen, combined with her doctor’s opinion, I think it’s more a general dementia, which is hard enough to deal with on its own.
Anne Laurie
@Chris: Sorry ’bout that — FYWP will always consider the word ‘casino‘ as spam. Not without reason!
Chris
@Spaghetti Lee:
*snerk. If we were all saints, none of us would need governments or rules of any kind. Saying that you can count on the innate goodwill of human beings to stop people in need from dying for lack of treatment is like saying that you can count on that innate goodwill to stop people from killing each other (and therefore don’t need police, prison, courts, etc).
And empathizing with the poor doesn’t mean writing your favorite charity a check every time you want to feel warm and fuzzy inside, it’s about supporting the measures that’re going to do the most to help the people who need it. By any objective measure, government safety nets have been beating private charity all hollow ever since they’ve been around.
ETA: and interdependency is exactly what regulations and welfare are about. Society doesn’t organize itself with nothing but good feelings.
Chris
@Anne Laurie:
Thanks, good to know! At first I thought it was “numb-nuts” that triggered it. After that – I had nothing.
The prophet Nostradumbass
Sorry to dump on you all here; I bring it up here because I know I shouldn’t talk about it on, say, Facebook, where relatives will see it, and my mom doesn’t want them to see it, and that people here will give me real replies.
Thanks.
YellowJournalism
@Anne Laurie: Wow. With the type of internal politics and gossip-mongering that goes on in some congregations, that would be the last group of people I would entrust my personal healthcare decisions to! It would be like asking your dysfunctional family member to serve as your therapist.
Could you imagine? “I don’t care if Carl needs a hernia operation. My niece’s acne treatments come first since she has prom next month. Besides, Carl’s wife told me this dress made my hips look big.”
And don’t even think about any family planning decisions…
Alison
@The prophet Nostradumbass: I’m sure I speak for many here when I say no sorry is needed. Late night open threads are a great place to vent a little stuff you can’t really let out elsewhere!
Elizabelle
TCM: Kwaidan. Four segments; Japanese ghost stories? Woman of the Snow is supposed to be marvelous.
Insomniacs enjoy.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Alison: Thanks, I appreciate it.
amk
What’s all this nonsense from the teaparty terrists IMPEACH the kenyan I keep hearing about ? On what fucking grounds?
The prophet Nostradumbass
@amk: On grounds of Blackness.
billgerat
@amk: Presidencing while black.
Elizabelle
@The prophet Nostradumbass:
Sorry to hear of the mom forgetfulness. Troubling for all of you.
ruemara
Um, for those who have gluten issues, is the gluten in beer really a big deal? I’m planning to make some things for the office party and I wasn’t sure if I should get a gluten free beer for my sauce.
Chris
@YellowJournalism:
I agree, and this is exactly why I like the concept of the “disconnected” “big government” “bureaucracy” “all the way in Washington” that horrifies these people so much. The fact that they’re “disconnected” means they don’t come with a lifetime’s worth of grudges. Maybe it’s misanthropic of me, but I’d much sooner trust my health care to a punch-clock bureaucrat for whom I’m just another client, than the “community” that’s as likely to use it as a score-settling tool as anything helpful.
The smallest and pettiest tyrants are always the ones who scare me the most. Because to them, it’s all personal.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Elizabelle: Thanks. I appreciate it.
Ruckus
@Alison:
And everyone else making an alzheimers possibility. Acknowledgement of memory loss is different. An alzheimers sufferer doesn’t recognize the issue. They just have lapses and don’t know why. My dad used to ride his bicycle and forget where he lived. So he would keep riding till he figured out he was lost. We had to take his bike and car away. He would forget the simple things, what a red light was for, to put his feet down at a light. He didn’t know he didn’t remember till he had what has been called a sunrise moment. It’s called that because in the morning, if a good nights sleep happens, memory would be better. At some point even that goes away.
Anyone who has not dealt with this, you never want to. Anyone who has already knows this. It’s like having an infant in reverse, an infant can be picked up and becomes more capable of taking care of themselves as they get older.
Anne Laurie
@The prophet Nostradumbass: That is… tough, for both of you. Any chance you can talk to her doctor(s), see what her options are for preserving her independence while keeping her safe?
Speaking of doctors, especially if she has more than one, you might want to collect ALL the pills she takes and check for interactions. Part of our glorious free-market medical system is that six different doctors can order twelve different prescriptions, four of them redundant and two of them dangerous in combination. (Heck, even ‘ordinary’ side effects can be dangerous — statin drugs, which my last doctor assured me are “so popular, everybody is taking them!” can cause serious brain fog even in the non-elderly.
Amir Khalid
@amk:
I might be wrong about this, being on the other side of the planet and all; but I gather that their fondest wish is to impeach Obama, convict him, and thereupon remove him from office. It would really, really help if he were sleazy or incompetent or a scofflaw. It would also make them more willing to work with him. But he has not been any of these things, which only goes to show how unwilling he is to cooperate with them in good faith.
Yatsuno
@Chris: Speaking as a mindless federal bureaucrat, the reason you should trust me more is precisely because I have no vested interest in the outcome. Pay your taxes or not, I get paid the exact same. We won’t get into the fact that no mindless Washington bureaucrat has any impact on any health decision now. Gotta wait until we’re all single payer first.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Anne Laurie: When she goes to the doctor, they make a point of talking to me as well. I think there’s actually something in her file at the clinic that tells them to talk to me too.
Amir Khalid
@Anne Laurie:
Second this recommendation re medications. Failure to do this (while seeing doctors on different continents) was what killed Heath Ledger. Any time you see a doctor, show them every prescription you’re currently on.
ETA: And bring the medications for them to see.
Ruckus
@The prophet Nostradumbass:
Hey, we’re here to help and to snark as necessary.
I also watched my grandmother go through dementia as the grandparents were living with us at the time. It is quite different than alzheimers when you see it up close.
I would seek help, doctor, etc as at some point the dementia becomes the overwhelming feature of their lives. I know you don’t want to hear that but in my experience knowledge is very helpful. And medicine knows more today than in the past and there may be something that can help. At the very least you can be better equipped to handle the issues.
A mind is a scary thing to lose, maybe you can make it a little less so.
Anne Laurie
@The prophet Nostradumbass: That’s good, for both of you.
You might want to see if you can ‘befriend’ her pharmacist, too, if she’s on medications, if only to be sure she’s actually refilling them on the proper schedule. Doesn’t ensure she’s taking them, of course, but at least you know she’s got them on hand.
The prophet Nostradumbass
@Amir Khalid: That is definitely a concern. However, My mom’s doctors are all at the same clinic, and all see the prescriptions that every doctor there prescribes.
The prophet Nostradumbass
This is why I keep coming back to this site, thanks, everyone, I really appreciate it.
Ruckus
@Amir Khalid:
Third this.
At the VA they go over my meds every time I’m there. It gets to feeling a little like I can’t make my own decisions anymore but I understand why it is done and I think it is a great point. It doesn’t matter who I talk to, they know what meds I’m on, my chart is on line and everyone sees the same info.
Socialist medicine. Hell yes, I’ll have more please.
You want this.
ETA that is the editorial you. Wasn’t directed at you personally.
Red Apple Smokes
@ruemara: If you’re cooking gluten-free, it’s better to pass on anything that is even questionable. I would go with the gluten-free beer.
mai naem
@The prophet Nostradumbass: I know one of the simple tests GPs do for Alzheimers is give you three words to remember at the beginning of the visit and then ask you to repeat them at the end of the visit and if you can’t it means there’s something going on. Also saying numbers in backwards order.
I have never heard of this Christian healthcare non scam and it sounds downright dangerous. Who the hell is going to give you $20-50K for, say, colon cancer surgery with no complications? And if you break your knee skiing, will your group decide that you shouldn’t get any money because you were involved in a dangerous sport?
J R in WV
@ruemara:
My celiac suffering friend watches everything , even soy sauce often has ehough gluten to set her off. For what it’s worth. She’s also allergic to eggs…
J R in WV
@Chris:
Really! Plus, who wants a faceless and anonymous businessman whose bonus depends on denying you care is charge of your health insurance?
Give me a professional getting a good salary to make those decisions any day. I worked for the state for most of my career (the best parts) and the state provided insurance is cost-effective and comprehensive.
andy
@Redshift: Well, here in Minnesota our company just did open enrollment, and there were places where you could decline, and they not so helpfully directed people who wanted to try the ACA to go to healthcare.gov instead of MNsure which is where you want to go if you actually live in Minnesota. Since the company is incorporated in Georgia, I’m assuming that’s sort of a fuck you to us Minnesota people, since in GA they are doing what they can to sabotage the ACA, while here they have made a real effort to make their portal work.
bjacques
A conservative friend of mine approvingly cites his doctor who spoke at a recent presentation for some alternative ACA bill sponsored by a Texas politician whose name I didn’t catch. It involved, among other howlers, Flexible Spending Accounts that could be passed on to children, tax-free!
So I guess the friend of mine who’s out of work because she suffers from neurofibromyalgia would be SOL under this plan, since she didn’t make much before and can’t save up now.
Sister Rail Gun of Warm Humanitarianism
@andy:
Healthcare.gov helpfully sends you to MNSure. The first question in the application is your state.
Debbie(aussie)
@bjacques:
That is the first time I have neuro added to fibromyalgia. Can you vie a few details before I go a googling. I have fibro with severe spinal issues.
Gretchen
@ruemara: yes, the gluten in beer is a real deal to celiacs. I have two daughters who are celiac, and one of them wouldn’t kiss her boyfriend after he drank beer until he washed his mouth out, because otherwise she’d get a stomachache. Not very romantic. They would find someone using gluten-free beer (it exists, and it isn’t hard to find – it’s made from sorghum) in a recipe so they could eat it incredibly thoughtful. And if they knew it had regular beer in it, they definitely wouldn’t eat it. Either way, the most important thing to them is that they know, so they can avoid eating something that will make them sick. They have a lot of trouble with the awkward work situations, where somebody will bring, say, a cheesecake as a treat for everybody, and then feel bad when the person who brought it realizes that my daughters can’t eat it. My daughters try to reassure them that it’s fine, I”m trying to lose weight, I don’t need cheesecake, but it’s awkward for everyone.
Gretchen
@the Prophet Nostradumbass: Has your mother considered assisted living? That might help with some of this. The thing we learned with my folks is that you should choose a place with all levels of care. They went to a place that was like an apartment, with housekeeping and meals and transportation (sounds like that would be a help with your mom, so she wouldn’t have to drive), but then my mom got too forgetful to manage her meds, so we had to find another place that would take that responsibility. Then she had a stroke, so we had to find a nursing home. We would have done better if we’d chosen a place that had all the levels of care, so as she needed more help, she could have gotten it while staying in the same place. It sounds like your mom is forgetful enough that it would be helpful to have someone else supervising her meds, taking her to the grocery store, and providing social opportunities. Of course that costs money, which isn’t always available, but some of these places provide enough support that someone who is having some issues can still be fairly independent.
WereBear
@The prophet Nostradumbass: In case you are looking for more replies:
There’s a new book out called Grain Brain by someone who is both a specialist in neurological issues and has a degree in nutrition. He is following the research that is leading to Alzheimer’s being called Diabetes III.
In a nutshell, the high incidence of processed foods combines with challenged blood sugar control to pin a lot of dementia issues to blood sugar that is too high. They are discovering that levels previously considered “fine” aren’t really; they create gradual damage.
This gets worse when older people lose their smell and taste, and wind up eating junk, and doctors urging them to go on statins and eat low fat; both of which are terribly bad for the brain, which is 65% fat.
Most old people turn out to have diets far too low in usuable proteins and good fats. We’ve all seen what a day of junk does for little kids, but in old people it turns out to promote forgetfulness and fatigue.
There’s been enough anecdotal evidence of dementias improving with daily coconut oil that there’s a study going on now.
DecidedFenceSitter
@ruemara: FUCK YES IT IS A PROBLEM.
Sorry, I’ve got friends who have celiac’s bad enough any sort of cross contamination is a horrible sentence to side effects. If you are making something gluten free, make it gluten free, absolutely, trust no substitutes. Otherwise, don’t make it gluten free and label clearly. Yes, some folks can handle a little cross-contamination, but why bother intentionally accidentally poisoning them.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@ruemara:
Yes, absolutely. The gluten in beer is just as bad as any other gluten.
Finally solved my constitutional issues by switching from beer to wine after eschewing all other gluten.
GHayduke (formerly lojasmo)
@WereBear:
I endorse this, from the perspective of a health care practicioner. (cardiac)
RSA
@The prophet Nostradumbass:
My sympathies and best wishes. I’ve learned about dementia over the past few months, and dealing with it is the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life.
Pogonip
@Elizabelle: Snow Lady is good but takes a while to build up. I liked segments 3 and 4 the best.
Paul in KY
@The prophet Nostradumbass: Senile dementia is not alzhemiers, but it can mimic some of the mental degradation.
It is a mefical term for ‘your brain is older than dirt’.
liberal
@Amir Khalid:
Agreed, though if we had a rational medical system instead of this idiotic piecemeal POS we have, it’d all be in a database.
Natallia
It’s very interesting